I recently discovered F*cking in Brooklyn, a blog about life, relationships, and love, topics near and dear to my heart. The author is Jackie, a ridiculously good looking black New Yorker. From his About page:

F*cking in Brooklyn recounts his honest, hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking journey of self-discovery. This native New Yorker offers more than just insight into the male mind, he invites you to peer into the human condition: authentic tales of soul and flesh from the County of Kings.

Jackie’s writing style is it’s unlike any other writing in the sex/dating/LTR niche. His stuff is pure honeyed poetry (locally sourced of course), and he’s not afraid to experiment with form and structure while at the same time shedding light on topics like Dating and Fucking. I highly recommend checking him out.

Jackie started the Insomniac Club, a coterie of writers who are loosely blogging in the dating/relationships/love niche, supporting each other, and linking to each others posts. One thing they do is blog on a specific topic once per month. I was pretty excited when I discovered the group, as I think it’s super important to be a part of a community as blogger, which is a tough gig these days. You can follow the Insomniac Club via the Twitter hashtag #insomniaclub.

Topic: What would you do if you found your partner still has an online dating profile?

Long story short, I met her on match.com, we went on a few dates, had absolutely ripping sex, she completely flaked out on me, stole my watch, and I never saw her again. I was definitely a little distraught because I thought she was cool and the sex was so damned good. When I say good, I mean clowns shooting out of cannons pink exploding zeppelins good. She did have a drinking problem and the fact that her pets were all up in my grill every time I came over sucked, but whatever.

Anyway, around that time, I had been experimenting with Craigslist dating. I had posted an ad and also been trolling ads and sending out emails just to see if there was any market. That is definitely a topic for another post, but on one of my ads, I posted a small picture, and Kitty emailed me out of the blue and busted me!! The tone of her email was more amused than accusatory, probably because she was also trolling CL ads and had just outed herself.

BTW, craigslist is the absolute sewer of online dating. Navigate with utmost caution.

Admittedly, I occasionally still fantasize about Kitty.

Lance’s Take

It used to bug the shit out of me when my dates or a partner in the early stage of a relationship was active with their match.com profile, but now I think it’s no biggee. To be perfectly honest, I’ve done the same thing many times. The huge drawback with a marketplace like Match is that you’re flooded with choice, and thus constantly looking around for another option, a prettier face, a better body. You’re also very much playing the numbers, so could be juggling multiple dates at the same time. It’s part of the game, like it or not. Besides online dating, aren’t we constantly connecting and flirting with potential options on Facebook and text? Match is just another channel.

I think if you’ve recently met or are just dating, there’s no conflict. If you’ve recently announced that you’re going steady, it would behoove both of you to hide or deactivate your profiles, but it’s not a dealbreaker either. At least for me. If you’re in a LTR, obviously there’s a problem if you or your partner have active profiles and using them.

With my last girlfriend, Sarah, we had been dating for about a month and slept together. She had an active Match profile (I checked) and even admitted to me that she had scheduled 4-5 dates with other dudes after we started dating. That was a major reality check and made me realize that dating is very much a wide open playing field. I had to embrace it and trust in my own process.

Go in with no expectations and put yourself in the best position for her to choose you, if that is indeed what want. It will sort itself out properly. Just be transparent if you’re dating multiple people and let the other person know, especially if you’re knocking boots also.

Be sure to check out the other posts on this topic from the Insomniac Club: